Stephen Harper And The Cheaters On His Watch Have Been Winning Non-Stop But Is That About To End?
Former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro Sentenced To A Month In Jail For Election Fraud!
Former Conservative MP and Harper spokesman Dean Del Mastro, who was sentenced to one Month in jail for election fraud, resigned his Peterborough (Ontario) seat in November.
By R. Paul Dhillon
With News Files
TORONTO – Do cheaters really win?
In the case of the Stephen Harper Conservatives, who are a much more sinister, and in at least three cases, a criminal version of habitual NFL cheater Tom Brady, the answer is YES!
In at least three successive elections, Conservative party men have been found guilty of fraud and cheating according to a recent Toronto Sun article.
Will fourth time be a bust for them as the law has finally caught up and handed their former MP Dean Del Mastro 60 days in jail.
With the NDP rising nationally and Harper falling steeply, will it be just desserts on Oct. 19?
In an article titled “The cheaters on Harper’s watch”, Toronto Sun Parliamentary Bureau Chief David Akin wrote an op-ed piece that begins with “Three elections. Three cheats. One party leader.”
“We’re talking about the Conservative Party of Canada and its leader, the incumbent prime minister now actively seeking re-election, Stephen Harper.
“For three elections in a row, a judge determined that a Conservative or the party itself cheated. And there could be more,” wrote Akin.
Here is the rest of Akin’s column:
In 2006, top party officials along with the party itself were accused of cheating in a complicated scheme to skirt spending limits on the national campaign. This was the so-called in-and-out scandal.
The charges against party officials were dropped but the party itself pleaded guilty to exceeding election spending limits and submitting fraudulent election records. A fine of more than $230,000 was paid.
In 2008, it was a Conservative MP, Dean Del Mastro, who would play the role of Conservative cheater. Del Mastro was convicted last November on three counts of violating Canada’s election laws, also having to do with spending limits. This week, a judge sentenced him to a month behind bars, another four months of house arrest, and a $10,000 fine.
Del Mastro is appealing and on Friday was released from jail on $5,000 bail until that appeal is heard.
In 2011, it was a Conservative campaign worker, Michael Sona, who was convicted of cheating in the Ontario riding of Guelph. His crime involved robocalls in an effort to prevent people from voting.
Also alleged to have cheated in 2011: The campaign of former Conservative MP Peter Penashue, where there are yet more charges of campaign overspending and attempts to hide those infractions after the fact. The trial of Penashue’s campaign manager continues in August.
Once might be an accident, twice is unlucky but after three consecutive elections in which a judge finds your team cheated, maybe it’s time for Harper to tell his party’s donors and the country’s voters what steps he has taken, as leader, to ensure there will be no Conservatives in front of a judge after this fall’s election.
I’m not holding my breath, though, for Conservatives throughout Harper’s tenure as leader refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
Del Mastro shrugged off the judge’s verdict in his case as “her opinion”. Sona has never accepted responsibility for what he did, one of the reasons a judge sent him to jail. And you will still find Conservatives today who downplay the party’s guilty plea in the in-and-out scandal as a mere “administrative” or “technical” oversight.
And then there’s Mike Duffy, the Harper-appointed senator on trial for fraud and breach of trust. It wasn’t his fault he mis-spent our money, his lawyer has told the judge over and over again.
Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau are two other Harper-appointees who, like Duffy, were kicked out of the Senate and, on the way out, gave long speeches about how they were blameless.
And when the auditor general fingered more senators this month for mis-spending our money, all the Harper appointees in the spotlight dodged responsibility and basically suggested the auditor general didn’t understand the Senate and didn’t know what he was talking about.
It’s not enough for Conservative partisans to howl that Liberals are worse or no better and that New Democrats wrongly spent millions on satellite offices. So what? Two, three or four wrongs don’t make a right.
The Conservatives should own up to the fact that it is their party alone that had a Harper campaign worker in jail and an MP and senator facing jail time — all for cheating during Harper’s watch.
The offences are an “affront” to the principles of Canada’s democratic system and the very “antithesis” of democracy, said Justice Lisa Cameron.
“This type of cheating and lying will result in serious sanctions. … Custody is required to reflect the need for denunciation and deterrence,” Cameron said.
The former MP for Peterborough will have to pay $10,000 to the Peterborough Electoral District Association and serve a further 18 months on probation. He is also barred from running for office for five years, “ concludes Akin.
David Akin Column Courtesy Toronto Sun
